How to Fix “This site ahead contains harmful programs” Error in WordPress

Are you seeing ‘This site contains harmful programs’ error on your website? This usually means that your website is hacked and Google has marked it insecure. Sometimes even when you fix the hack, the error still shows up. In this article, we will show you how to fix this site ahead contains harmful programs error in WordPress.

Reasons for This Site Contains Harmful Programs Error

The number one reason for this error is that your website is hacked and is believed to be distributing a malware. This code spreads itself from the infected website to website visitors and can even spread to other websites.

Google marks a website with this warning if they find any suspicious code that could be a malware or trojan. This warns users to be careful when visiting these sites.

Another common reason for this error is showing ads from low quality advertising networks. These networks may sometime display ads linking to websites distributing malicious code.

Fix This Site Contains Harmful Program Error

Removing malware and recovering a website can become a very complicated task. Sometimes even when you clean your site thoroughly, the malicious code can keep coming back until you find and remove the backdoor placed on your site.

Backdoor is referred to a method of bypassing normal authentication and gaining the ability to remotely access the server while remaining undetected. Finding the backdoor is not an easy task either. It could be a compromised password, unsafe file permissions, or a cleverly disguised file. We have a detailed guide on how to find a backdoor in a hacked WordPress site and fix it.

Once you have successfully removed the backdoor, you will still need to thoroughly check all your files and database for any malicious code.

As you can see that cleaning up and infected WordPress site can be a very tedious task. This is why we use Sucuri on all our websites.

Sucuri is a website monitoring and security service for WordPress users. It monitors your site 24/7 for suspicious activity, blocks any hacking attempts on your site, and clean up your site of any malware.

It costs $199 / year which is well worth it considering a freelance security expert may charge you upwards of $250 per hour.

Once there, you need to click on the security issues section in webmaster tools. This page will list any security issues Google may have found on your website. You will also see the links to resources on clean up on your site.

Once you have fixed the issues, click on the checkbox and request a review.

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